Rs 4.26 crore for a man in permanent coma: Delhi HC raises Rs 1.53 crore award on care costs

Justice Anish Dayal applied the multiplier method to nursing, attendants, physiotherapy and future treatment, rejected a three-year-old income finding, and refused loss of consortium because the man is alive.

A Motor Accident Claims Tribunal had allowed Rs 1 lakh for attendants and nothing for nursing for a man who will stay in a coma for life. On 6 November 2026 the Delhi High Court recalculated his future care costs on a multiplier of 15.

The total went from Rs 1,52,76,996 to Rs 4,26,09,147, an increase of Rs 2,73,32,151. Justice Anish Dayal also set aside a Rs 9.95 lakh deduction for the claimant’s health insurance payout and rewrote how his earlier income should be averaged.

The court did not give everything sought. It refused any compensation for loss of consortium, saying that head belongs to cases of death.

Struck while helping his children down

On 11 February 2022 Bharat Ghai, then 39, parked his Maruti Ertiga at the BSF Camp, Chhawala, on Najafgarh Road in Delhi. His wife, minor children and mother were in the car.

As he opened the rear door to help the children down, a Maruti Swift hit him. His head struck the windshield and stuck there, and he was dragged for 20 to 30 feet.

He was diagnosed with severe hypoxic brain injury, bed-bound, with bowel and bladder involvement. A Medical Board certificate recorded 100 per cent permanent physical impairment and said his condition was not likely to improve.

His wife, Harpreet Kaur, testified as the first witness and pursued the claim as his next friend. They have two school-going children, aged 13 and 17, and Mr Ghai’s mother is 80.

What the Tribunal awarded

The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, South-West District, Dwarka Courts, decided MACT No. 620/2022 on 16 March 2026. It assessed his functional disability at 100 per cent and awarded Rs 1,52,76,996 with 7.5 per cent interest.

The claim had been for Rs 2 crore with 9 per cent. The family appealed for enhancement, with Mr Sanjeev Ralli, Senior Advocate, arguing for Mr Ghai.

Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company, represented by Ms Sunanda Nimisha, said the Tribunal had weighed each head with reasons and the award needed no change. The other respondent, Raju Grover, had died, and the appeal proceeded against his legal representatives.

Fifteen grounds cut to eleven

Mr Ralli initially pressed 15 grounds. They covered income, the insurance deduction, pharmacy bills, Amazon invoices, Ayurvedic and homeopathic bills, physiotherapy, attendant wages, future medicine and loss of consortium.

On instructions, he later dropped four: loss of amenities, pain and suffering, the Rs 35,000 homeopathic consultation and future contingent medical expenses. The Rs 2 lakh for pain and suffering therefore stayed.

Justice Dayal heard the appeal after reserving judgment on 28 September 2026. He took the surviving grounds one by one.

Income averaged over three returns, not one

The Tribunal had used only the return for assessment year 2021-22, Rs 2,48,153. It reasoned that the family had not filed a return for 2022-23, although Mr Ghai had been in a coma since February 2022.

Mr Ghai worked in event management. Ms Kaur said he earned Rs 7 lakh a year, and an Income Tax Department witness proved his returns for four assessment years.

The court called the Tribunal’s inference from the missing 2022-23 return “completely unfair, unjust and illogical” (para 14). A family dealing with a coma could not be expected to rebuild a year of records, it said.

The Tribunal had also noted that the 2021-22 return was filed on 30 March 2022, after the accident. The court said the family could at best have had the accountants, who held the 2020-21 records, file it. Rebuilding the accident year was another matter.

Rashmirekha Tripathy supplies the formula

For self-employed claimants, the court relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in *Rashmirekha Tripathy v. Sriram General Insurance Co. Ltd.* (2026 SCC OnLine SC 1256). That ruling takes the average of up to three previous years’ declared income as the reference point.

The returns for assessment years 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 showed Rs 7,36,053, Rs 5,03,623 and Rs 2,48,153. Their average is Rs 4,95,943.

The pandemic years had pulled the income down, a point Mr Ralli pressed. The Tribunal had noted that Ms Kaur’s affidavit did not say so. Averaging, the court said, absorbs a swing in either direction.

With 40 per cent added for future prospects, a multiplier of 15 and 100 per cent disability, loss of future income rose from Rs 52,11,213 to Rs 1,04,14,800.

Health insurance money stays with the family

The Tribunal had deducted Rs 9,95,015 that Mr Ghai received under his Mediclaim policy from his hospital bills. The court followed the Supreme Court’s ruling in *New India Assurance Co. Ltd. v. Dolly Satish Gandhi* (2026 SCC OnLine SC 861) and set the deduction aside.

That decision treats the two sums as different in kind. One is statutory compensation under the Motor Vehicles Act. The other is a contractual benefit, which the Supreme Court described as a consequence of premiums paid in the past.

Hospitalisation bills therefore stand at Rs 64,64,810 with no deduction.

Pharmacy bills allowed almost in full

The claim for pharmacy bills was Rs 19,76,382. Rs 15,26,656 of it came from one chemist, Manocha Medicos, with Rs 1,40,082 from Tata 1mg and Rs 3,09,644 from other pharmacies.

The Tribunal gave a lump sum of Rs 3 lakh. It said a claim of that size needed strict scrutiny, the bills carried no matching prescriptions, and the last discharge summary prescribed medicines for only a week to ten days.

The High Court asked Mr Ralli for a tabulation. He gave 111 entries from Manocha Medicos, worth Rs 11,37,259, each matched to the treating doctor’s advice and invoice number, and similar charts for the other pharmacies.

The court also read a medical opinion of 10 April 2024 from Dr Rana Patir of Fortis Hospital, Gurugram. It listed tracheostomy and Ryles tubes, hospital bed rent, a full-time trained nurse and later surgery.

The invoices either named Mr Ghai as the patient or covered consumables his treatment needed. Seeing no reason to deny them, the court allowed the pharmacy head at about Rs 19.76 lakh.

Four claims that failed

Amazon invoices were not paid separately. The court found them hard to match to prescriptions and said they form part of the continuing expense counted under future medical costs.

It upheld the rejection of the Ayurvedic bills. No Ayurvedic doctor had been examined, no original bill was produced, and the two prescriptions on record had no stamp, registration or GST details.

It also upheld the rejection of Rs 2,09,512 in bills filed only as photocopies. No such bills had been produced before the High Court either. Mr Ralli’s Gauhati and Bombay High Court citations did not help without supporting evidence.

No consortium while the man is alive

Mr Ralli relied on *Maya Singh v. Oriental Insurance Co.* (2025 INSC 161) to argue that a family loses a husband’s and father’s company even when he lies in a coma.

The court turned to *National Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Pranay Sethi*, *Magma General Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Nanu Ram* and *Sameem Begum v. K. Venkat Swamy* (2026 SCC OnLine SC 1577). Those decisions define spousal, parental and filial consortium in terms of a death.

Justice Dayal said the position is settled that this compensation is payable on death. He added that he was deeply sympathetic but would not depart from the Supreme Court’s principles.

Why every future cost got a multiplier

For future care, the judge started from a principle. Compensation under the Motor Vehicles Act cannot be awarded on account of “pittance” (para 41), and where a claimant is comatose, quantification needs reasonable estimation rather than proof of every rupee.

He relied on the Supreme Court’s judgment in *Kajal v. Jagdish Chand* (2020) 4 SCC 413. It held that attendant charges, like loss of income, must be calculated with a multiplier, and not a flat monthly figure over many years.

Later Supreme Court decisions applied the same method. *Jithendran v. New India Assurance* and *Abhimanyu Pratap Singh v. Nanita Sekhon* did so for attendants, physiotherapy and future treatment.

The court also cited *Sunil Kumar v. IFFCO Tokio General Insurance Co. Ltd.* (2026 INSC 1145). There the Supreme Court raised disability to 100 per cent for a claimant who needs an attendant throughout his life.

The figures the court chose drew on Dr Patir’s opinion and Ms Kaur’s testimony, with a multiplier of 15 throughout.

The figures head by head

Future medical expenses were fixed at Rs 50,000 a month. That gives Rs 90,00,000 against the Tribunal’s Rs 37,35,088.

Physiotherapy is now Rs 30,000 a month, or Rs 54,00,000. Dr Patir had put it at Rs 45,000 a month, and Ms Kaur said she paid Rs 1,000 a visit, twice a day, until October 2022. She then cut it to once a day because she could not afford more.

The Tribunal had assessed attendants on an unskilled worker’s minimum wage. The court said there was no reason for that and used the skilled worker’s wage on the date of the accident, Rs 19,473 a month. That works out to Rs 35,05,140.

Nursing, which the Tribunal had not awarded, came to Rs 54,00,000 at Rs 30,000 a month. Dr Patir estimated a full-time trained nurse at Rs 75,000 a month, and the court used less than half of that.

Attendant and nursing charges together are Rs 89,05,140. The court merged the Tribunal’s separate physiotherapy and attendant heads into single heads.

Payment, release and fixed deposits

The enhanced amount of Rs 2,73,32,151, with 7.5 per cent interest from the date of the claim petition, is to be deposited with the Tribunal within six weeks. Rs 25 lakh with interest is to be released to Mr Ghai within two weeks after that.

The rest goes into fixed deposit receipts of Rs 2 lakh each, for one month, two months, three months and so on. Interest is to be credited to his savings bank account, and each deposit is released on maturity after verification.

Order

The appeal is disposed of with compensation enhanced by Rs 2,73,32,151, to a total of Rs 4,26,09,147 at 7.5 per cent interest. The court’s computation puts Rs 64,64,810 under hospitalisation, Rs 1,04,14,800 under loss of future income, Rs 90 lakh under future medical expenses, Rs 54 lakh under physiotherapy and Rs 89,05,140 under attendants and nursing.

On 26 May 2026 the court had already directed release of Rs 45 lakh over and above the 50 per cent the Tribunal allowed. Any balance of the original award with accrued interest is to be released as a lump sum, so Ms Kaur can clear the borrowing she took on.

Pending applications are infructuous. A copy of the judgment goes to the Tribunal and the bank.